Heeeee's baaaaack

Much to the girls' delight, our elf, CeCe Fluffy, made his first appearance on Black Friday. The girls had been asking about him for weeks and during the week leading up to Thanksgiving, we told them that he would probably return to our home soon. I guess Anna and Em were in the kitchen for awhile that morning and never spotted him. I was upstairs beautifying for work and heard Allie discover him hanging from the curtain rod.


The day before CeCe's return, I found a line of foam craft stickers stuck to the back of one of the girls' kitchen chairs. Well, I came downstairs to find Allie pulling the stickers off of the chair as CeCe Fluffy looked on. The girls were discussing what other naughty things they may have done that they could fix. (It was really just sticker related.)

The girls love looking for him each morning and they do talk to him here and there but the idea of him reporting good and bad deeds to Santa isn't really sticking. They don't really buy the whole "if I'm bad, Santa won't bring my presents" thought.

When I was younger, the majority of my gifts under the tree were from Santa and then there would be one or two from my parents. I think it was the opposite for Rich. After much questioning from the girls, we have had to explain that Santa gives some presents and some are from Mommy and Daddy.

This year (as we have done in the past), we "adopted" a local child in need for Christmas. I am happy that we are able to help another family and hope that we are teaching our girls that Christmas is about giving, not just receiving. I was very proud of them this past weekend because they did a fantastic job of helping to pick out clothes and awesome toys for this little girl and never once did they cry or try to keep a toy for themselves.

But they did ask why Santa couldn't just give this little girl a lot of presents. So we had to explain that there are just so many kids, Santa can only give a few presents to each. I then explained to the girls that I would need to go shopping one night to buy the presents that Santa couldn't give them and that I wouldn't be home for bedtime. So much for secret shopping.

Now, aside from working late, there are less than ten nights a year when I am not home at bedtime. Well, last week, there happened to be three nights when I was either not home at all or arrived in time for one last story. The girls, especially Emily, were not pleased with this and I was told that this was IT and I was not allowed to go anywhere at bedtime EVER AGAIN.

On Sunday, after explaining to the girls that I would need to buy some of their Christmas presents SOON and that Grammy and I would most likely go shopping one night right after I arrived home from work, I asked for confirmation that they wouldn't flip out on Rich. They jumped around happily, yelling, "YIPPEEE," at the mention of presents.

"Remember, you can't give Daddy a hard time or cry. And these are Christmas presents. You won't be able to open them until Christmas."

Emily: "Okay. I'll just fake cry."